


The permanence of it

by juldevere



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, and its name is pain, but that's just the blake sibling motto am I right???, there's a third character in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:00:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24974218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juldevere/pseuds/juldevere
Summary: "I’m glad it was you, despite everything. I’m glad I got you and not something else, some imagination. Despite everything, O."
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Octavia Blake
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	The permanence of it

**Author's Note:**

> This is a piece that travels on from episode 6x10, so it’s fairly dated now but I finally finished the thing and glad I could post it. Hopefully it still resonates.

"Octavia. Did I ever tell you that I begged Mom for a brother?"

From where she's lying on the forest floor, one of the scraps of material found in the tent pulled tight over her body, Octavia can barely make out the outline of her brother. It's his hair more than anything else that attributes him to the shape, and she finds herself fixating her eyes onto it.

Octavia can't remember what the last thing they had said to one another had been or even how long ago it was, maybe when they had set up camp, and he bid her goodnight before turning away from her. Their group was to remain here until dawn, to rest and regain their strength for the formidable battle of Sanctum. She hasn't been able to fall asleep though and knows as she stares across at him, even though the fire from the lantern hooked on the tree close by is dying, that he hasn't either.

His voice breaking the silence is still a surprise though, and she hesitates for a moment, wondering if she had imagined it. It strikes her that a few years ago, pre-cryo sleep, in a different tone, the question could've been posed to her as bait, teasing her because he was bored and wanting attention or to pinch her out of a mood.

Now, though, his voice holds something she can't quite make sense of.

It's detached and quiet but also steady – patient, which is hard to believe.

Though perhaps what is even more perplexing, is that his question holds a painful revelation - there was very little she knew more of herself than she did her brother – that she did not know this.

Octavia reaches for an edge of the blanket, gripping to it so hard that her wrist begins to throb with pins and needles.

The silence stretches on, long enough for her to buck up enough courage and swallow against the coarseness in her mouth. Long enough for her to realize that he, in the silence, is waiting for her too.

"No, Bell. I don't think you ever told me that one."

It goes quiet for a minute or two, but she can hear the shake of his breath, a rattle of sound and she wonders if maybe her earlier assessment of his steadiness was somehow her own projection.

He clears his throat; they're far enough away from the others to speak openly but he's quiet as he begins to talk, as though needing to preserve some barrier around them. "I was old enough to know better, but I kept asking, begging. I couldn't help it. I…imagined these adventures I could have with a brother. The excitement of that alone was so powerful to me that I was deluding myself into pretending it was even a possibility, the two of us roaming The Ark together," he finishes, his voice thin, as though these memories had been scratched out within his mind and were taking a great effort to recover.

The urge to defend him with the words ' _You were only a child, Bell. Of course you were pretending'_ is a forceful thing, a plough of pain to her entire body. As if those words were too being summoned from a depth too low to retrieve without casualty. 

They stay lodged at the back of the throat, decayed and tired. The longer they sit, the more obvious they feel, the more they curl into themselves and refuse to leave her.

Instead, she retreats into the memories. For all she has of them - dozens and dozens - of her brother taking her on adventures through the sheer conviction of his words alone, through endless pages of novels, poetry, prose, eager to teach her, desperate to imagine with her, there isn't a single one that has even a lingering shadow of his disappointment. Of his reconciliation at having to deliver and explore worlds to a person he had not longed for, whom he had not begged for.

Octavia closes her eyes, wills herself not to cry. Still, the ache in her throat is now excruciating: _he would have been better for you, a brother,_ she thinks _, you could have lived more than half a life, with a brother, it could have kept you free, unbound, a brother, you – you would've been better, with a brother._

As if reading her mind or perhaps instead reading her within their silence, he speaks and breaks through these thoughts.

"I've been wrong about many things in my life, O, you know that better than anyone…but-" He pauses, and it's the old, faded nickname that does it, draws back some fondness in a way he probably has no control over, the very use, the very name itself will not exist without it – that familial quality, that unquestionable, uncoverable love.

"I just…I don't know how to do this with you now. I don't know how we're supposed to do this, but I do know that not asking for you…that was… I'm glad it was you, despite everything. I'm glad I got you and not something else, some imagination. Despite everything, O. You're so much more than it."

_'I would've asked for you'_ and the desire to speak this is so unmeasurably desperate, she can hardly breathe, ' _I would've asked for exactly, exactly you.'_

"I'm sorry, Bell." She manages and tears are slipping down her cheeks, smearing into the fabric of the blanket. She hopes the words are enough to make the distance between them, hoping that even if they don't, they hold the strength not to drown while trying.

The back of his head, that clump of wild hair she's had her eyes glued on to, starts to move as he rolls over, instinctively tucking into himself as he goes, as he would've done when they were children. She used to love picturing how they would've mirrored one another looking down, how they would've been a twin from any sky.

The lantern has long gone out, and the moon tonight is hidden, but his eyes find hers through the darkness; despite it, they find her.

"I'm sorry too," Bellamy says, his own voice awash with anguish, thick with tears, and maybe these words don't quite reach either, perhaps they too can't yet make the distance but what does, what she hears is: _thank you._


End file.
